Hotel, homes proposal stalls after San Juan council vote

Aug. 6, 2014

Updated 12:52 p.m.

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This drawing shows the proposed 136-room Hilton Hotel, with Forster Street in front and Camino Capistrano in the background. The Egan House is behind the hotel facing Camino Capistrano. , COURTESY IMAGE

This drawing shows the proposed 136-room Hilton Hotel, with Forster Street in front and Camino Capistrano in the background. The Egan House is behind the hotel facing Camino Capistrano. , COURTESY IMAGE

A proposal to build a hotel and 30 homes in downtown San Juan Capistrano is stalled indefinitely after the City Council on Tuesday rejected a community coalition’s 2-year-old plan to allow residences in the downtown area.

The vote stunned many in the packed audience of about 120 people, including Tom Scott, president of the Camino Real Playhouse, who yelled, “Time to get a new council, you guys,” and left council chambers.

Council members on Tuesday were to consider a long-debated plan for a 136-room four-star Hilton Hotel and 30 homes on 3.18 acres by Historic Town Center Park and the Egan House, but their rejection of allowing homes downtown meant the plan couldn’t be considered.

Joshua Host, principal of Urban Village Development Co., withdrew the proposal Tuesday, which was first presented to the community about 18 months ago, and said he wasn’t ready to say what he was going to do. Landowner Steve Oedekerk, a Hollywood movie producer, also said he wasn’t sure how to proceed.

“It’s such a weird, shocking moment,” he said.

Community leaders spent two years and about $500,000 debating whether to allow homes in the downtown area. The council approved a new document, the Historic Town Center Master Plan, in 2012, which allows attached buildings such as townhomes, but the council never formally amended the city’s General Plan to allow homes there.

Charlie View, who was hired as the city’s development services director in December, noticed in May that the General Plan had not been amended. City Attorney Hans Van Ligten felt the project couldn’t proceed unless the council amended the General Plan to reflect the Historic Town Center Master Plan.

A final vote on the project was rescheduled from June to Tuesday, when it was rejected by City Councilmen Derek Reeve and Roy Byrnes. Mayor Sam Allevato and Councilman Larry Kramer voted in favor of the amendment. Councilman John Taylor could not vote because he lives within 500 feet of the 41 acres considered to be the town’s historic center, so the amendment failed on a tie vote.

“They lit a match and burned up a half million dollars of our money tonight,” said Marc Weintraub, a 26-year San Juan Capistrano resident and friend of Oedekerk’s. Weintruab was referring to the tax money city officials spent developing the Historic Town Center Master Plan.

Scott said he wants to see Reeve, who along with Kramer and Taylor is seeking reelection in November, off the council. The longtime leader of the city’s downtown theater is among supporters who have met with Host over the last year to help develop the plan, which was the city’s only viable option for a hotel downtown after the highly anticipated Plaza Banderas on the Ortega Highway parking lot next to the mission was scrapped last year in favor of a shopping center anchored by Trader Joe’s. That proposal has not yet been considered by city officials.

The General Plan amendment wasn’t the project’s only issue. City officials also recently realized the proposed homes – developers recently dropped the amount from 33 to 30 – were single buildings, not the attached townhomes envisioned in the Historic Town Center Master Plan. The City Council needed to specify in the amendment that single buildings could be allowed. Council members were to vote on whether to do so, but their rejection of housing downtown negated the need.

Reeve said he believes residents want San Juan Capistrano’s downtown to stay quaint like in small towns in Northern California.

“I believe allowing residential downtown is the wrong approach for the city of San Juan Capistrano,” said Reeve, who voted against the Historic Town Center Master Plan in 2012. “I’ve been very consistent about that for four years.”

Byrnes said he didn’t feel he was ready to consider housing downtown.

“I really cannot see a compelling reason to take action at this time,” he said. “When things are unclear, that’s not the time to forge into the waters.”

Allevato criticized Byrnes after the meeting, telling him in front of Oedekerk and his supporters that the city’s downtown “is going to further deteriorate because of your actions tonight.”

He told the Register he’s “very disappointed” to see the hotel proposal essentially killed.

“We’ve not built anything in this town in 20 years,” Allevato said.

Oedekerk described what happened this way: “They’ve definitely been talking to me like the project has been possible for two years. Now all of a sudden, that’s not true.”

Allevato has long supported the project and described the General Plan amendment as clean-up legislation regarding an issue that had already been debated and decided upon. Most residents who spoke Tuesday seemed to agree, though many said they wanted only townhomes downtown, not the single-family residences that are part of the hotel proposal. Host, the developer, emphasized that the homes are separated by just 6 inches. That reduces construction costs by 5 percent compared with attached homes, and it avoids the difficulty that comes with financing condo projects, Host said.

Some worry that allowing single-family residences downtown would lead to people buying large swaths of land to build huge homes. While the Planning Commission on July 14 voted in favor of the General Plan amendment to allow housing, commissioners rejected the proposal to allow single-family residences.

Allevato said Tuesday the city could craft language that would require the homes to resemble townhomes. But Reeve called the basic idea of housing in San Juan Capistrano’s downtown “one of those very rare situations” where the business community’s interests aren’t in the best interests of residents. He also urged Byrnes to reject the plan: “We’ve got to make a decision, even if it’s a decision they don’t want,” Reeve said.

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